I've Often Heard that Life is Like a Game of Chess; but the Longer I Live, the More I Realize that It's Much More Like a Game of Backgammon . . . .

You Can Make All the Right Moves and Still Be Wiped Out By  Roll of the Dice.

from:

Morality Without “Free Will”

Clearly, we need to build prisons for people who are intent upon harming others. But if we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well.

The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas, and bad luck—which of these quantities, exactly, were they responsible for? No human being stands as author to his own genes or his upbringing, and yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character throughout life.

Our system of justice should reflect our understanding that each of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life. In fact, it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself.